


Nocturne Forest

by nocturneforest



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nocturneforest/pseuds/nocturneforest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In camelot, Emma overhears David and Killian talking about Killian proposing to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nocturne Forest

It’s early in the morning when Killian rises from his deep sleep. The sun streams into his bed chamber from a small break in the curtains, flooding the room with beams of golden light. Slowly and hesitantly he pushes back the covers, and gets out of bed. 

He changes into his day clothes, and makes his way out into the large, dark hallway of the castle. The walls are made of dark wood, and a red carpet stretches the length of the hall, ending at the next turn. He makes his way to the end of the hallway, and turns the corner, and makes his way over to the balcony that overlooks the main courtyard. 

Killian watches the courtyard for a small amount of time, enjoying the morning. It’s rather early, and the sun has just risen - he’s not quite sure where Emma is at the present minute, but figures she must be in her bedchamber, and that it would be best not to disturb her. He would simply have to wait to see her at breakfast. 

***

Emma hadn’t been sleeping. Not since she’d become the dark one, she hadn’t slept for days. It was this ever-looming darkness within her that kept her awake, that forced her to think. And so, when she hadn’t been sleeping, she’d been making dream catchers. It was slightly ironic to make herself dream catchers despite the fact that she couldn’t sleep, but there was a part of her that believed that maybe if she’d made enough, then maybe, just maybe, they’d take the darkness away. That’s what they were supposed to do, right? Take out the darkness and the bad? Well, either way it was something to do to pass the time when she was not sleeping. 

It’s around five in the morning when she finishes making her eighth dream catcher for the night. Or, well, she thinks it’s around five in the morning, seeing as Camelot has an absence of clocks. She sets the dreamcatcher down on the desk, and heads over to the stained glass window of her bedchamber. 

Everything outside looks so calm, so quiet, so still. The moon is hanging low in the sky, and is bright and full. A part of her wishes that Killian were here right now with her, though she wouldn’t really want him to see her like this - consumed by all this darkness. 

“Looks nice out there, doesn’t it.” Emma swings around to find Rumplestiltskin, or, the darkness that looks like Rumplestiltskin, sitting on her desk, one of the dream catchers that she made in his hand. 

“The dreamcatchers are a nice way to pass the time, but wouldn't it be fun to do something a little more adventurous?” She can tell that he - it - is only trying to persuade her to do what it wants. 

“Go. Away.” She says through gritted teeth, going to it and yanking the dreamcatcher out of it’s hand. In response to this, it jumps off the desk, and heads over to the window.   
“What’s the harm? Go out there. Explore.” It pushes, completely ignoring her wish for it to leave. 

She’s ready to fight it, ready to tell it to shove off once more, ready to go find Killian (he made it go away yesterday, maybe he could do the same now), when her feet begin to move. It’s not under her own will that they move, it’s almost as if they have minds of their own. Suddenly she’s out of her bedchamber, wandering down the pitch black castle corridor, and out towards the forest. 

***

A hand on Killian's shoulder startles him out of his trance. He'd been overlooking the corridor for a couple minutes, before deciding to switch to a different balcony which looked out onto the forest surrounding Camelot. 

"Beautiful morning, isn't it?" Killian turns around to find David standing behind him, a smile on his face. 

“Aye.” Killian responds, before returning back to his outlook over the forest. 

“I missed it, when we were back in storybrooke. Of course, there are forests there, but it’s not quite the same.” David was obviously leading to something, but it didn’t really bother Killian. At this point he considered as David more of a friend than anything else. 

“How’s Emma?” David’s question had surprised Killian - after all, David was her father, so he should know. But it was true that Killian was closer to her than her parents were, so David’s question wasn’t completely out of place. 

“She’s alright. It’s the darkness - it’s making her see things.” Obviously there’s more to it than just that, but Killian isn’t sure if Emma would want him telling all this to anyone, let alone her father. 

“I figured that was the case. I just wish I could help her.” David Responds, his gaze shifting to his hands, “I wanted to talk to you about something, Killian.” 

“Alright mate then -”

“Not here, we might be heard.” David cuts Killian off, and nods over to the forest, “Out there.”

***  
Suddenly, she’s lost. One moment the darkness was bringing her through the forest, and now Emma has no idea where she is, or how to get back to the castle. 

She scans the forest in search of some indication as to where the castle is, but it is to no avail. The darkness no longer controls her feet, though it stands beside her, watching, just as it always does. 

“Lost, are we?” It teases her.

The trouble with it all is that she can’t seem to make out where the darkness ends and where she begins. When she’d seeing it in the form of Rumple, that’s when it’s easy - it’s obvious that he is the darkness and that she is still Emma. but then something like this will happen where it will take control of her, altering and controlling her thoughts and movements. It consumes her, coming and going like waves of an ocean, sweeping her out to it’s black sea from time to time. It fills her and strangles her and she’d no longer able to tell if the decisions that she’s making are hers or its - everything is a haze. 

That had all changed yesterday though. Yesterday, when Killian had taking her out horseback riding, out to the field of flowers. When she was with him, it seemed to fade, to lose its strength. It was as if being with him blocked it somehow, as if his presence kept the darkness at bay. And yesterday, when it was just the two of them, out in the field - it hadn’t existed at all. For those couple few seconds when her lips were pressed against his and his arms were wrapped around her, holding her close - there was no darkness. No ever-looming presence telling her (or forcing her) what to think or do. It was just Emma. How she craved to be just Emma once more. 

“I’m not lost I’m just -” Emma stops mid sentence, startled by the sound of footsteps nearing her. 

“Better run and hide, dearie - wouldn’t want to be found out here!” Rumple smiles at her deviously, before disappearing from her sight. The sound of the footsteps crunching the leaves and twigs of the forest floor grow nearer to her, as she finds a tree to hide behind. The footsteps soon become accompanied by a familiar voice - Killians.

***

“I just don’t see why we had to head all the way out here for you to talk to me.” Killian argues with David. They’d been walking for the past 20 minutes, only to come to this spot out in the middle of the forest. 

“I didn’t want her to hear us,” David explains, “After all she’s the dark one, she can probably hear everything within a hundred mile radius from her.” 

“Well then, seeing as we are nowhere near a hundred miles away from her she can probably hear us anyway - now what was it you want to talk to me about?” Killian asks, still slightly annoyed that David dragged him all the way out here to talk. 

“You… and Emma. Your relationship with Emma.” David responds, heading over to a nearby log and taking a seat on it. 

“What about it?” Killian asks, sitting beside david on the log. 

“I take it you two are serious?”

“I told you before, I wouldn’t risk my life for someone I see as loot.” 

“Do you love her?” 

“Of course I love her.” The answer comes simply to Killian - it’s not like it’s anything new. He’d known that he’d loved her since the moment she’d left him chained up, only a couple days after he’d met her. Of course, he didn’t admit it to himself for quite some time. It wasn’t until he saw her again after the missing year that he’d finally been willing to admit to himself that he was in love with her. 

And the fact of the matter was that at this point, there wasn’t a thing about her that he didn’t love. He loved the way that her hair fell, in golden strands gently brushing her shoulders. He loved the way that she spoke more in actions that she did in words, and the way that the words that she did speak said volumes. He loved the way she cared for her family, and the way that she was determined to never give up on making sure other people were happy. He loved the way that she smiled, and the way that her walls came crumbling down more and more with each day that she spent with him. He loved her in her entirety, and that was something that would never change. 

***

He says it in such of a ‘matter of fact’ way. Like there isn’t a question about it in his mind - he loves her. He didn’t even hesitate in admitting it. 

Emma finds her cheeks beginning to turn warm, and can’t help but smiling to herself. She’d known that he loves her for quite some time, but hearing him say it out loud made everything different somehow. 

Her mind returns to the conversation between Killian and her father. She knows she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but then again it’s not her fault that she just happened to be out in the forest right where David and Killian came to talk. That’s the other thing - why would they come all the way out here to talk? What is so important to keep from anyone else but the two of them hearing? 

***  
Killian notices that his hands have gone clammy. He’s not the type to get nervous, but being brought all the way out into the forest to talk to the father of the women that he loves, he can’t help but feel a little intimidated. 

“Good.” David responds to his last statement, “You can tell. You’re a good man, Killian.” 

Killian, unsure how to respond, gives a small nod in thanks. 

“You want to have a future with her?” David is obviously leading up to something, Killian thinks to himself. 

“Someday, yes. I want to marry her someday.” It feels strange to say these words out loud, though they’ve been in the back of Killian’s mind for quite some time. The entire concept of a future was something that he’d never really been able to grasp, at least not until Emma came along. Everything he’d known and loved had always left him at one point in his life or another; first it was his father, then his brother, and then Milah. It seemed that everything that brought light into his life was inevitably snuffed out after being with him for some time. But not Emma - he was determined not to lose her. She was all that he had, and no matter what he wasn’t going to let that slip away from him. 

“Of course, first there’s this darkness to take care of, but then… someday. Perhaps when we’re back in storybrooke or, I suppose it doesn’t really matter where we are, so long as she’s herself again. Someday, if it is what she wants.” 

***  
She can feel the pace of her heart speeding up, one beat at a time. He wants to marry her, to have a future with her. It’s something they’d talked about in vague mentions from time to time, but a part of her had always thought that it would never happen. The idea of a future where she was happy wasn’t something that Emma had had the luxury of dreaming about when she was younger. 

But now here she was, out in the middle of the forest, hearing the man she loves talk to her father about the possibility of marrying her someday. It’s almost amusing to her - he adds on ‘If it is what she wants’ to the end of his sentence, as if there’s the possibility that Emma wouldn’t want to marry him. It’s as if after all this time, he’s still not sure that a future with him would be something she would be interested in. 

Emma can feel her hands begin to go clammy. She feels terrible for being here, for listening in on this conversation that she is very obviously not intended to hear, but by this point she’s in too deep. She supposes she could try to escape, but it’s more likely that they’d hear her that way, which would only make matters worse. So, she stays where she is, trying her best to go unnoticed. 

***

David digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a small object, keeping it in his closed fist. Killian is unable to make out what it is, though he thinks he might have an idea. 

“I was talking to Mary Margaret last night,” David says, looking down at his fist, “And we… got onto the topic of you and Emma and your future together and… We want you to have this.” 

David unfolds his hand, allowing Killian to see the small silver ring with a green gem that he’d been holding in it. It’s the same ring from when they’d gone back in time, the same ring that David had gotten for Mary Margaret, the same ring that Mary Margaret wore on her finger every day. 

“Mate I can’t-”

“Killian,” David cuts Killian off, “We want you to have it. For when the time comes, we want it to be passed down to Emma.” David takes the ring and places it into Killian’s palm. 

“We want nothing more to see our daughter be happy, and we’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you. We’re not expecting you to propose tomorrow or anything like that, but we want you to have it. You’re good for her, you know. You can see it, she’s different when she’s around you.” 

He stares at the ring for a moment, turning it in his palm. The way the light passes though it makes it appear almost as if it is glowing, the emerald gem lighting up the surrounding area of his palm. It really is beautiful, Killian thinks to himself, imagining it on Emma’s ring finger. 

He doesn’t know what else to say, other than a quiet ‘thank you’. It’s hard for him to comprehend, but it suddenly feels like he has a family again - like he is part of a family for the first time in hundreds of years. He hadn’t been part of a family since his father left and Liam passed away, but this, being given family heirlooms and being treated like he was a part of something… it changed things. 

***

She can’t see what David puts in Killian’s hand but she hears a mention of a proposal and something inside her constricts, as if her heart has had its strings pulled at. The concept of a future with Killian that is suddenly within her grasp makes her smile like an idiot. 

She can hear them begin to get up, followed by the sound of their footsteps on the forest floor. The noise of the leaves crunching and the twigs breaking beneath their feet fades as they head back through the sunlit forest to the castle.


End file.
